By Scot Kersgaard
When rivers rise to resemble fast-moving lakes, it is health and safety that people think about. Only when the water recedes and rivers again run within their banks do we start to add up the financial costs of material losses. In a pattern becoming all too familiar, in Arkansas and Texas this year those costs may reach into the billions.
According to the Impact Forecasting group at
Aon Benfield, the total cost to insurers for flooding this spring in Texas and Arkansas could reach $1 billion or more, with total losses reaching as high as $3 billion.
In Oklahoma alone, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved requests to provide flood-related assistance to 59 counties.
Business losses include damaged or destroyed vehicles, damage to buildings and property, and loss of business, especially in areas reliant on tourism or the efficient transport of goods.
Often enough it has been damage to such public property as highways and bridges that leads to loss of business. Interstate 35 between Oklahoma City and Dallas was only re-opened this month after rockslides and wash-outs had closed miles of highway. US 71 and Oklahoma 41 had also been closed for extensive periods of time.
Emergency responders have done their work. Now it is up to insurers and governmental authorities to help put the rest of the pieces back together.
